Agate goblet with lid
1600 - 1650. Agate, Chalcedony, Enamel, Gold.Room 079B
Goblet comprising five pieces of stone and six gold adornments. The body, in chalcedony, possibly ancient, exhibits a ribbed ornamentation carved in relief and could be a repurposed stone. The adornment on the lip matches that of the lid; a chequered pattern of leaves in translucent green enamelling and white ovolos with black cruciform motifs. The agate lid has a raised central part, where a decoration of white beads and pointed green and red leaves once held a bust, lost in around 1815. The stem consists of two pieces of agate, the larger a decorated baluster with spiral curves in relief, and the smaller in the form of a neck with a small base. There are three ring-shaped decorations with thick, rounded leaves, enamelled in white, green and red. Another more delicate ring joins the stem to the part-spherical base.
The adornments clearly belong to the cosses de pois or "pea pod" style of ornamentation, so frequently used in Paris in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Similar examples are toi be found in the Louvre, such as the adornments of convex, rounded leaves that join the stem to the base of the goblet MR 118, also present in the Prado’s O3. Pointed leaves as the decoration of the base of the crown also appear in the rock-crystal mirror in the Louvre (MR 252).
The lid was once crowned by a small bust, possibly similar to that of the Prado’s O7 goblet, already fractured in 1776 and lost in around 1815, for which there is no detailed description in the Spanish inventories, it was, however, described in the 1689 Versailles inventory as being made of agate. It also lacks the decoration at the base, stolen in 1918, which is known through the historical photographs, and which was very similar in design to the still-extant decoration of leaves holding the base of the crown, similar to that at the base of the Prado’s O10 goblet and the upper part of the central decoration on the O7 goblet.
The state of the work in the 19th century can be seen through the photography of Juan Laurent Minier, "Vase à pied à balustre, agate orientale, montures d’or émaillé, XVIe siècle, règne de Henri III", ca. 1879, Museo del Prado, HF0835/9.